Five Years of Untamed Spirituality and Challenging Feminism by Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente

In Chilean tradition, the number five has an important meaning regarding the understanding of life. At 5, a person starts school and life in society. At 15, we celebrate the entrance into the young adulthood. At 25, it is expected you have finished college. Age 30 is a good age to get married and by age 35 you’ve probably bought your first house. At 40, it is the perfect time to make an evaluation of your life … At 65, you leave behind all duties and enjoy the rest of the path. Each one of this milestones comes with a celebration or ritual that gathers your family and/or closest friends.

A few days ago, I entered my 5th year of Islam as my spiritual path. Following the tradition, I want to make an honest assessment of my first period as a Muslim- naming the Good, the Bad and the Ugly- but also expressing my Hopes, in the sincere feeling that the best is yet to come.

THE GOOD

I progressed in my spiritual development. I’m more aware of my role as a caliph of creation; a more lucid human about the impact of religion and spirituality in society, for better or worse. I am a more compassionate being. I have understood that compassion is about the struggle for what you believe, speaking up when you have to, and taking a stand against oppression. My faith has become an intangible fuel that pushes me to transform my environment for the common good and keep me strong in my actions towards social change for greater gender justice.

During this years, I have worked on myself, even if it was not always with the discipline I would like. But I was able to reconcile with my past pains and assume an attitude of learning. My spiritual Jihad (struggle) has been an internal one; a liberating of my inner chains. The more I know my faith, my Creator and myself, the more I love my faith, the lives of others and myself.

I have unified my feminist activism with my Muslim condition. My life story, my passion for women’s rights and my vocation for service have nurtured each other in a beautiful synergy through my Imaan (faith). Nothing is further from the concept of oxymoron than my own experience. I have broken stereotypes about Muslim Women and Islam, especially my own stereotypes about what it means to be a Muslim woman and a feminist woman with a publicly assumed spirituality in a patriarchal world.

I increased my knowledge on an intellectual level. This has been possible thanks to the generosity of many brothers and sisters who have contributed to my Islamic education with conversations, books, teaching time and a lot of patience and love. Many have challenged me with daring thoughts that have pushed me to think more, to read more, to question more. Thanks to them, my brain has become a lethal weapon against ignorance and Patriarchy.

THE BAD

Nobody said this road was easy. Like many Muslims, I walk between two worlds: The non-Muslims and the Ummah. In none of these worlds is my presence entirely welcome. I am still not fully accepted and understood yet.

To my family, friends and acquaintances, it is still complicated. I left my home country 10 years ago, as an agnostic, anonymous and feminist women. I returned only 18 months ago as even more committed feminist, but now Muslim woman who appears richly in Google searches. Several acquaintances have given up on the attempt to re-know me. I understand. I also have difficulty finding my current self in the woman I was. From the Umma, the situation is no better. I have already mentioned this in previous posts. It is simple and clear: I do not support the dominant narrative about what a “Good Muslim Woman” should be. And I think I never will.

Beinga feminist has been difficultandpainfulat times. I havemet withawall of misunderstanding fromother feministstowardsIslamic Feminism and Muslim women. Evenat the individualorhuman level, which turns out to bevery violent. In this regard, I recall an incidentin 2012 on the premises ofParliamentinArgentina, in which afeministmeetingwas heldto discussa bill. I was thereas a journalist-with myheadscarf. One of thedebaters, raised her voice to say (while pointing at me with her finger) that she “does not admit veiled womenin her space andthat feminismshouldnot allow it because it was oppressive”. I answered coldly, “You, madam, are entitled to your opinion. I am entitled to dismiss it.” Of course, I didn’t move an inch.

Other difficultiesare practical.I’m the onlyMuslim womanin my city of Concepcion, Chile. There’s no MosqueorIslamicCentre here. The availabilityof books onIslamicissues is very limited andthe mostinterestingworkis always inEnglish or is difficultto get because ofits price. I was able toovercomethese difficulties throughmy social networksand mastering foreign languages,but this is areal obstacle many Latin American Muslims face. These stones in my journeyas a Muslimhave led me to rely onmy creativity and pro–activity to address them.The answer tothese conflicts hasled tocyclesof talks, inter–religious meetings, workshops onIslamandwomen’s rights, Islamic feminism, CEDAWandKoran,among other topics.

THE UGLY

You will dislike me for saying this: The under-representation of Latina Southern Muslim Women (LSMW) in spaces for Islamic Feminists or Muslim women hurts. It seems Islamic Feminism still belongs only to those in the first world or living in the MENA region.

When someone appears speaking to issues concerning Latina Muslims, it is usually a white woman or Latina woman living in the first world whose reality cannot compare to my reality, and that of other Latina Muslims living in South America. They cannot speak with experience about all the difficulties of being Muslim in places with no inclusive mosques or alternatives discourses about Islam, and dealing with a strong hegemonic Patriarchy. No LSMW is speaking up in spaces that want to be inclusive and descriptive of the reality of “Muslim Women”. Our stories are untold.

Research led by Professor Francirosy Campos in Brazil shows that for every 10 new converts to Islam in that country, 9 are women; Islam is becoming a gender issue in our continent. The sole occasion I’ve seen LSMW mentioned in those spaces was in Muslimah Media Watch to smash, invalidate and illegitimize a project called “Memes Feministas Islamicos” (Islamic Feminists Memes) that aims to mock and call out Patriarchy in Islam, denouncing discrimination and gender violence in religious spaces as well.

Global communication globalizes invisibility even in those spaces that aim to offer a diverse representation of Muslim women. Could we be more supportive of each other and go beyond our comfort zones in the building of Sorority? Is this too radical and annoying ? Will I deserve a ban? An unfollow?

However, by far the worst thing I’ve experienced is harassment by dogmatic misogynists and bigots who justify their actions by claiming they act in defense of Islam. The cruelty of some episodes affected my peace and sometimes my feeling of safety. Never before have I felt exposed to such hatred.

Thanks to my bullies, every time you abused me, I have become stronger and fiercer. After each attack, insult, threat and sending to hell from you, “Legitimate Defenders of Allah”, I am more aware of the need to kick your misogyny out of Islam. In recent times, people have begun to describe me as a “Warrior.” The strength and determination I have gained would not have been possible without your collaboration.

THE HOPE

My personal hope is to continue to grow intellectually and spiritually and to open doors to inclusive social interactions based more on people and less on stereotypes. I could see this hope blossom a little bit the last week. For the first time, a public university in Chile, University of Valparaíso, opened its doors to a Muslim woman coming from the world of activism, to talk on Islamic feminism and struggle for women rights in Islam. My collective hopes are with a small group of people, from different backgrounds and a lot of energy and commitment to social justice. We are forming an organization focused on inter-religious dialogue and the promotion of a more inclusive Islam, in tune with the problems of Chilean society at spiritual as well as, social, political and economic levels.

The name of our organization is Imaan (Faith). We are starting with little money, but a lot of faith. Our belief is that Islam can be a transformative engine of social change for the dignity of human beings and the release from their material and spiritual oppression. We aim to promote interpretations that reflect the principles of inclusion, mercy, compassion and justice contained in the Koran.

Five years are few in number, but contain my many hours spent in learning, solidarity, reflection, doubt and hope. They mean a lot of shared moments with people who nurtured me with knowledge. They represent countless words thrown into the air for you to collect and transform. I think back to the day of my Shahada. Three things I brought with me that night that I still hold today: my faith in God, my untamed spiritually and my challenging feminism.

I wondered that day- What I would find in this way? What would be my contribution? How far would I go? These are still open questions and I like it so.

Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente is a Writer, Mentor and Community Educator in Capacity Building for Grass Roots Female Leaders and Advocates. A Muslim Feminist who is an Independent Researcher of Gender and Islam in Latin America on Feminist Hermeneutics, Muslim Women Representations, Queer Identities and Movement Building. She blogs in Spanish at Mezquita de Mujeres, a site dedicated to explore the links between Gender, Religion and Feminism as well to Women from the Global South as Change Makers in their communities.

Vaness, I’m excited for you and the things you might accomplish, especially with your new organization for interfaith interaction. As a non-Muslim feminist, I would request that you translate some of your religious terms, so I can understand what you’re saying. I figured out “caliph of creation,” “Ummah,” and”MENA.” But it slowed down my reading and probably it made it difficult for others. When people use acronyms or technical (spiritual) terms, it seems to me they are talking to an in-crowd, in this case, one of which I am not a part.

Hello Nancy. “Caliph” is a concept in Islam about the responsability of every person on earth on the creation and the well being of society. MENA (Middle east and North Africa region) Is a concept from I world academia. Ummah (Muslim community in a broadest sense but also to refer at the specific muslim community someone is linked to)

Thanks Nancy and Vanessa, some of the terms were challenging for me too. Sometimes the meaning of a key word in a faith is hugely interesting, including often many possible interpretations in that faith alone. In Judaism, HESED (unconditional love), for instance, a very different term, but connected in Zen to ADVAITA (non-duality), Both terms seem to me very profoundly responsive to the well being of all people and all being, as Vanessa describes CALIPH, and what an interesting and beautiful teaching that one word is!! I did not know it before either.

I especially wanted to thank you for the necessary reminder that diversity and pluralism is always radical, always divergent, never just one or two categories. I will try to be more aware in thinking about, talking about intersectionality to consider the aspects of Latinas in South America that I know so little about.. I mean at least to say, I no nothing about their realities, BUT that it also impacts on how we think about Islam in the diaspora.

On a more personal note, I have been dragging my feet in between my travels and thus tardy to follow up with the copy of my book I promised to send you. I can just mail off my own single copy and order for myself later, that second book and the copy of the Italian translation is already here. Just need to pop off to the post office and go ahead and send them. I didn’t think clearly enough about the problem of Resources in Spanish although I did offer to assist with your offer to translate Qur’an and Woman. As I mentioned when we met, I do not have any thing much to do with the process when other translations come out, but if we put our heads together, I think we can find a way to make it happen once you do the hard part, which is translate.

It is not my culture but me personally that counts things off in 5’s. After a few decades, I changed it and started counting off in decades! The point is: we keep growing and learning As such this idea of assessing where you have come in order to keep hope alive for moving forward is surely a marvelous one.

Thanks Amina! I hope with the time, more LSMW can make her voices heard. About the translation, I have been planed to start in june. I think in one month I can do it. The italian translation would be good to have but I also read english and I have a copy of Quran and Woman in english that a wonderful latin muslima from USA sent me. So i dont have any problem to start with this and then make a review once the italian version arrived. Maybe when you come back from your travels we can talk about it.